


love's a word we've only heard

by phantomas (sil)



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-08-27
Updated: 2010-08-27
Packaged: 2017-10-11 06:51:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 454
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/109646
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sil/pseuds/phantomas
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Written in 2007, vague reference to ep. 2.20.<br/>title from Nat King Cole</p>
    </blockquote>





	love's a word we've only heard

**Author's Note:**

> Written in 2007, vague reference to ep. 2.20.  
> title from Nat King Cole

She never told him. They were so young. Too young. And he was going away. Lying about his age, going far away, to fight a war in another country that felt so removed and alien from her as anything in this world could possibly be. She reproached herself for not being charitable, about the soldiers that were dying, about the population trapped between governments games, but…she was so young. If it wasn't for John, if it wasn't for what they had done, she may have been out there, protesting, carrying a sign that called for Love and Peace.

Make Love, not War.

Love.

It sounded so soft and tender, in John's voice, in his arms, his hands. She could have said no. At any given moment, she knew she could have said no, and John would have stepped back, inhaled deeply, smiled at her, just kissed her tenderly and took her hand. He'd always stopped.

But this time, he was going away. And they had fought about it, about the ideology of it all, about the risks, about the reasons. Maybe she could have asked him, "please don't go." They'd been going out for six months at that point, from friends to lovers to friends again to lovers again, John being the tall, friendly guy that everyone loved, and herself, Mary, wanting to be free, not to be tied down too soon.

She didn't ask him not to go.

Mary thought that maybe he wanted her to. Something in the way John looked at her, in the way he opened his mouth and no words were offered. Something in the way he touched her.

She didn't ask him not to go, and she didn't tell him to stop.

The first letter she received from Vietnam after months of silence made her cry all day long. And the day after. Her aunt was worried, fussed around her until Mary yelled at her.

"I love you," the letter said. "I love you, and I should have told you. I hope to come back. I want to come back."

She asked her aunt to let her hold the tiny baby girl, before her new parents took her away, to a proper home, a proper name.

John would have loved her. But he never knew. Mary never told him.  
And when he came back, with that hard light in his eyes and his broken spirit for her to mend, it was all she could do to remember how young they had been. It was all she could do to promise herself that her family would be strong, and loving.

John never knew.  
Mary never told him. About their baby girl, and about the man with the yellow eyes.


End file.
